The art world's biggest spender is 'placed under house arrest'

Sheikh Saud Al Thani spent a decade outbidding all-comers in the auction rooms. Now he has been sacked by his own cousin, the ruler of Qatar, writes Chris Hastings

The world's biggest art collector, Sheikh Saud Al Thani of Qatar, who has spent hundreds of millions of pounds during the last decade buying some of the most important works, has been placed under house arrest after being abruptly removed as head of his country's national council for culture.

According to a report today on the internet site of The Art Newspaper, Sheikh Saud, whose collections include millions of pounds' worth of British art, has been held incommunicado since the end of February on the orders of his cousin, the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who has asked Qatari authorities to investigate his cousin's acquisitions.

News of his arrest has astonished the international art scene, where Sheikh Saud had a reputation for paying as much as 113 times the estimated price for items he particularly wanted. Apart from being a substantial private collector, Sheikh Saud had been given responsibility for using state funds to buy work for five new museums in Qatar, which has been trying to transform itself into the cultural capital of the Middle East.

British friends and London-based dealers who have worked with Sheikh Saud insisted that he was the victim of a palace coup. One British dealer who has worked with him extensively and asked not to be named told The Telegraph last night: "There are a lot of people in positions of power who don't like what he is trying to do."

In recent years Sheikh Saud, who has homes in London, Paris and Doha, the Qatari capital, has spent millions of pounds of his own money realising his passion for Fabergé objects, photography, Art Deco furniture, specimens of natural history and penny-farthings. In his capacity as head of Qatar's national council for culture, he has also travelled the world buying Islamic art for public buildings, including the five museums under construction in Doha.

Qatar, which is now one of the wealthiest states in the Arab world following the recent discovery of vast offshore oil and gas reserves, is determined to transform its cultural role in the Arab world. Sheikh Saud, who would sometimes spend tens of millions of pounds on a single item, was fêted by galleries and auction houses and given unrestricted access to the storerooms of the world's great collections. His success was founded on his ability to outbid rivals.

But his determination to buy the very best occasionally set him on collision course with authorities in Britain. Last year he bought the Clive of India treasure, a Mogul jade flask studded with rubies and emeralds, for £3 million at Christie's. The sale of the flask, which had been on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum since 1963, shocked the art scene in Britain.

The Government responded by deferring an export licence so that the V&A might launch a campaign to raise matching funds. The museum secured a £400,000 grant from the National Art Collections Fund and was preparing to submit an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund when Sheikh Saud informed the reviewing committee on the export of works of art that he was withdrawing his request for an export licence. The flask is understood still to be in Britain.

It was not the first time that the Government had been forced to respond to one of Sheikh Saud's purchases. In 2002 it tried unsuccessfully to prevent the export of The Jenkins Venus, a Roman marble statue from Newby Hall near Ripon, North Yorks. Sheikh Saud bought it for £7,926,650 - the highest price paid at auction for any antiquity. The statue was eventually shipped to Qatar.

At Christie's last April, agents for Sheikh Saud astonished the art world when he bought a Mogul agate-and-garnet fly whisk for £901,250, 113 times its £8,000 estimate.

A number of British dealers who have worked with the sheikh have been asked by the Qatari authorities to send records of any transaction. It is not clear, however, whether the request was directly related to an investigation cited by theartnewspaper.com or whether it was part of routine accounting.

Married with three children, Sheikh Saud is passionate about wildlife and has turned his home at Al Wabra, outside Doha, into a conservation centre.

One acquaintance described the sheikh as "something out of a Ronald Firbank novel".

"He is effete, decadent and a compulsive collector," the friend said. "He once said to me, 'I feel ill when I am in a museum'. When I asked why, he said, 'I want to buy it all. That's why I feel ill' ."

Last month dealers in London and Paris who have sold work to the sheikh received a fax from the authorities in Qatar. It stated, without explanation: "Sheikh Saud Al Thani is no longer the chairman of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage of the state of Qatar. Accordingly, he no longer has the authority to engage or make commitments on [its behalf]." The statement was signed by the organisation's new chairman, Dr Mohammed Abdulraheem Kafoud.

Sheikh Saud could not be contacted at his London office last week and did not respond to an email sent to his family estate at Al Wabra. Qatar's National Council for Culture, Arts and Heritage did not respond to a series of faxes sent by The Sunday Telegraph and no one at the Qatari Embassy in London was available for comment.